Spark goes driverless in 5G push
Spark’s latest 5G showcase involved a self-driving electric vehicle from Kiwi company Ohmio.
It looked very gee-whiz Jetsons, with Ohmio’s usual golf cart-ish design jazzed up with some angular panels and neon lighting.
And yesterday, the Herald had a lot of fun riding a driverless Ohmio around coned-off streets at Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, where Spark maintains a small test 5G cellular network, using Huawei, Cisco and Ericsson gear. Industry watchers will find it interesting that Huawei got no name check at the event.
The Ohmio was summoned via a tablet, and drove itself to the pickup point before carrying its passengers on a pre-programmed route.
At one point there was drama, as Ohmio’s Lidar sensor (an invisible, pulsed laser beam that plays a similar role to radar) picked up a knocked-out-of-place road cone and brought the vehicle to an emergency stop — which was not too traumatic as the Ohmio was only travelling at 7km (it can pull 25km).
But although Ohmio is a promising company, and you can make a case for driverless vehicles benefiting from 5G which has none of the lag in two-way communication of today’s 4G mobile networks, it will be years before driverless cars are a common sight on our streets.
It’s still not clear why Spark MD Simon Moutter is pressing so hard for his company to launch its first 5G service by July 1 next year — a line-in-the-sand date he has now pushed at several events as he’s lobbied the Government to get a wriggle on and resolve the Treaty and technical issues that are holding up a 5G spectrum auction.
Moutter’s impatience is a stark contrast to Vodafone boss Jason Paris, who says that while 5G will be great, the industry shouldn’t invest ahead of demand. And to 2degrees CEO Stewart Sherriff, who has warned against drinking the 5G “Kool-Aid”.
Yesterday a Spark spokeswoman said the July 1, 2020 target would allow the company to get 5G up and running for the America’s Cup. She also reiterated her MD’s point that Australia’s 5G auction was completed last year. Moutter sees NZ falling behind, economically, if our mobile network technology falls behind.
Left unspoken is what could be Moutter’s real motivation — his company’s successful push into fixed-wireless, which allows it to pocket tens of millions that would otherwise go to network wholesaler Chorus.
Fixed wireless has hit its natural limit with 4G, but could well get more life with 5G.
Meanwhile, Ohmio already has two of its vehicles operating at Christchurch Airport.
Its R&D head, Dr Mahmood Hikmet, said a joint manufacturing deal with a Chinese partner, first publicised last year, was finally all signed last week.
The JV, with a local government agency tied to the city of Heshan, will help Ohmio fill a giant order from South Korean company Southwest Coast Enterprise City Development (SolaSeaDo) for 150 autonomous shuttles — some will carry up to 22 people standing, and some will ferry goods or waste around a proposed giant apartment complex.